Big Pig 5: Days 8-9 - Rhythm Achieved

As the title suggests, we’ve settled into a bit of a vacation rhythm these past few days.  Now that the major foot drama has played itself out, we’ve been able to just kind of enjoy being in a warm beach place as far as possible. 

On Saturday, we got morning and evening sessions in the pool with Erica’s cousin Chris’ family, then had a tasty taco dinner at their condo in the same complex as ours.  In the afternoon, though, we went to Golf n' Gator, a sort of low-grade theme park, complete with two putt-putt courses, a go kart track, and a little live animal collection.  (The Tiger King documentary would refer to such a place as a "roadside zoo," but we didn't know it was going to be like that until we got there). Though James was distraught to be refused access to the go karts on account of his broken foot, he pulled himself together for the golfing and even managed his first hole-in-one.  Juliet golfed for free, but really couldn't have been less interested.

Please ignore the giant conical depression around this hole 

The REAL showstopper, though, was of course the "zoo," because like all real zoos, you can handle the animals for a fee.  Transported by rapturous joy, James held a baby alligator with a band over its mouth for about thirty seconds, while the guy snapped a picture that now resides in a fridge magnet.

Yesterday, we were at the beach by 9:30, and stayed for about an hour and a half until the spell wore off for the kids.  Juliet totally dug splashing around in the small waves.  James spent his time combing the beach for crabs, and toyed around with the idea of building a sand castle for a while, but you could tell his heart wasn’t really in it.  There was another kid around James’ age who was just going hog wild out there in the waves, plus some slightly older kids taking surfing lessons.  It was a bit much to expect that he wouldn’t be hurt by this.

This is no fun.

We ended up meeting the six Thomases (Chris’ family) at one of our favorite places, Grills, an outdoor fish restaurant right along Port Canaveral.  It was the first restaurant any of the kids had visited in 15 months.  It was bloody hot, though, and my seat was in the sun.  We got to see a pair of dolphins splashing around in the port canal just off the restaurant deck, and some huge pelicans.  That means we’ve so far seen on this trip: geckos, northern curly-tailed lizards, manatees, frogs, myriad water birds (including ibises), peacocks, dolphins, alligators, a black snake, and at the roadside zoo, a giant tortoise, monitor lizard, and all kinds of snakes.  Boss!

With fresh fish right off the boat on the menu, James ordered a corndog

We got back to the condos in the later afternoon meaning to swim, but a massive thunderstorm hit the Cape, which lasted for most of the day.  It let up enough for us to swim in the pool before supper, but recommenced afterwards.  At some point in the afternoon, James was deservedly bitten by a gecko.  

The air conditioning has gone out in Tom and Cheryl’s place, so we spent the night at Chris’ (all 10 of us).  We stayed up way too late watching the first Harry Potter movie.  I’m writing this Monday morning on the porch with coffee, watching the A/C repair tech work his magic.